brett kavanaugh vows to fight smears and will not withdraw

           Brett Kavanaugh Vows to Fight                       ‘Smears’ and Will Not Withdraw

WASHINGTON — Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, facing new allegations of sexual impropriety and growing doubts over his confirmation to the Supreme Court, mounted an aggressive defense of himself on Monday, vowing to fight the “smears” and declaring that he will not withdraw his nomination.
With President Trump publicly backing him, and senior Senate Republicans closing ranks around him, Judge Kavanaugh — joined by his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh — gave an extraordinary interview to Fox News that aired Monday evening. He pledged to “defend my integrity, my lifelong record,” and told his interviewer, Martha MacCallum, that he “did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years thereafter.”
He also directly addressed the accusation from Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist in Northern California, that he had assaulted her when they were teenagers, more than 30 years ago, at a high school gathering in suburban Washington.
“The truth is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone, in high school or otherwise,” Judge Kavanaugh said. “I am not questioning and have not questioned that perhaps Dr. Ford at some point in her life was sexually assaulted by someone at some place, but what I know is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone.”
It is a remarkable step for a Supreme Court nominee to submit to a television interview — or make any public utterance — before a confirmation vote, and Judge Kavanaugh’s team chose a network that features ardent conservative commentators. Fox News is also a favorite venue of the president’s, offering the judge an avenue to make his case to Mr. Trump.
But even as Judge Kavanaugh was defending his integrity, the hits on his once clean-cut image kept coming. The New York Times published an account of him and some of his high school football teammates boasting in their yearbooks about exploits with a student at a nearby Catholic girls’ school, boasts the woman recently called “horrible, hurtful and simply untrue.”
Even before that account was published, Washington was reeling from a rat-a-tat spate of other accusations against him.The New Yorker magazine published an account from a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, who attended Yale University with Judge Kavanaugh and said he exposed himself to her during a drunken dormitory party. And the lawyer Michael Avenatti posted additional salacious allegations on Twitter.
In the interview with Fox, Judge Kavanaugh flatly denied Ms. Ramirez’s accusation. “I never did any such thing — never did any such thing,” he said. “The other people alleged to be there, don’t recall any such thing. If such a thing had happened, it would’ve been the talk of campus.”
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